Every Jordan Peele Film Ranked

Jordan Peele has only directed three feature films so far, but none of them feels disposable. Get Out, Us, and Nope all turned horror into something you could argue about on the drive home, then argue about again three days later when one particular scene refused to leave your head.

With Peele's next film still keeping fans waiting, now's a good time to rank the trilogy we have. And yes, one movie has to come third. That doesn't make it bad.

Three Movies, Three Very Different Nightmares

3. Us (2019)

Putting Us last feels slightly cruel. Lupita Nyong'o gives one of the best performances in any Peele film, playing both Adelaide Wilson and her rasping double Red, and the opening stretch is a brutally efficient piece of home-invasion horror.

Released in 2019, Us followed Get Out with the kind of expectations that can crush a second film. Instead of repeating himself, Peele went bigger and stranger. The Wilson family encounters red-clad doubles known as the Tethered, turning a family vacation into a nightmare involving scissors, underground tunnels and a deeply unsettling use of Luniz's "I Got 5 on It."

The problem arrives when the movie starts explaining itself. The mythology of the Tethered becomes harder to accept the more details you get, and the final revelations invite practical questions that distract from the themes Peele wants you thinking about.

But plenty of it works beautifully. The image of hundreds of Tethered forming a human chain across America is difficult to shake, and Nyong'o manages to make Adelaide and Red feel physically different before either one says much. Critics responded strongly too: Us currently sits at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Third place here means "messy but memorable." You can do much worse.

2. Nope (2022)

Nope is the Peele movie that improves most once you stop expecting another Get Out.

Daniel Kaluuya plays OJ Haywood, a Hollywood horse trainer who notices something very wrong above his family's California ranch. His sister Emerald, played by Keke Palmer, sees opportunity where OJ sees danger. From there, Peele builds a UFO movie around our desire to look at things that probably shouldn't be looked at.

Then there's Gordy.

The flashback involving a sitcom chimpanzee remains one of the most disturbing sequences Peele has directed, despite initially seeming disconnected from the main plot. It eventually becomes the key to understanding the whole movie: people keep convincing themselves that wild things can be controlled because there's money, fame or a perfect shot waiting on the other side.

Nope is also Peele working on his biggest canvas. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, whose credits include Dunkirk and Oppenheimer, gives the California landscape a scale that Peele's earlier films never attempted. The result earned approximately $123 million at the U.S. box office and holds an 83% Rotten Tomatoes score.

It's less immediately satisfying than Get Out, but arguably more rewarding on a rewatch. Once you know what Jean Jacket actually is, earlier scenes start behaving differently.

The Number One Spot Isn't Particularly Close

1. Get Out (2017)

Sometimes the obvious choice is obvious because it's correct.

Get Out works before you analyse a single metaphor. Chris, played by Daniel Kaluuya, visits the wealthy family of his white girlfriend Rose and quickly realises something about the weekend is very wrong. Peele takes awkward conversations, forced smiles and supposedly well-meaning comments and gradually tightens them into a horror film.

That's what makes it so effective. You don't need an essay beside you to feel the tension when Dean Armitage tells Chris he would've voted for Obama for a third term. You understand exactly why Chris looks uncomfortable.

And once the film reveals the Sunken Place and the Armitage family's operation, the earlier social awkwardness becomes something much nastier.

The numbers underline how strongly it connected. Released in February 2017, Get Out earned about $176 million in the U.S. and currently holds a 98% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Peele also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, while Kaluuya received a Best Actor nomination.

Most impressive is how little waste there is. The teacup, the camera flash, Georgina's smile, Walter running directly at Chris in the middle of the night, even Rod's TSA jokes all have a job to do. Peele was already unusually confident about when to scare you and when to let you laugh.

Eight years after its release, Get Out still feels like the clearest version of what makes a Jordan Peele movie work.

Why You Should Care

You don't need to be a horror obsessive to get something from these movies. Peele uses familiar genre machinery, aliens, doubles, creepy families, things moving around in the dark, to talk about race, exploitation, celebrity and the uncomfortable pleasure of watching terrible things happen from a safe seat.

And with only three directed features, catching up takes less than six hours. Start with Get Out, watch Nope when you want something bigger and weirder, then give Us a chance to get under your skin.

What to Watch Next

If you've finished Peele's three films, go straight to Candyman (2021), which Peele co-wrote and produced. Nia DaCosta's film shares his interest in using horror to dig into uncomfortable social history while still delivering an actual horror movie.

Then try Monkey Man (2024), produced by Peele's Monkeypaw Productions and directed by Dev Patel. It's angrier and far more action-heavy, but it has the same appetite for genre filmmaking with something on its mind.

Finally, watch The Stepford Wives (1975). Its mixture of smiling suburban politeness and creeping horror makes it an especially good companion to Get Out.

Peele's filmography is still short enough to finish in a weekend. The impressive part is that choosing the best one already requires leaving two movies you'd happily watch again behind.